5.19.25 Board Meeting - 2025-05-19 22:01:15

001Can you do a roll call, please? Sure. Steve? Here. Jessica? Here. Tom? Here. Angie? Here. Tucker? Here. Kim? Here. Thank you. Okay. A quorum is present, so we'll proceed with the business of the board. First we got, uh, item number four, election of officers. So I'm the vice president. Steve Bianchi will run this portion of the meeting until the elected positions are filled. Then the president elect will take over. So first up is the president. Are there any nominations from the floor for president? You can just, you can say it. You don't have to write it. I'm gonna nominate Angie, sir, please. Okay. Okay. Now I gotta ask this again. Are there any additional nominations for president? Third time? Any additional nominations for president? Hearing none. No additional nominations? I seek a motion to close

002the nominations. Do I have a second in favor for, for Angie? Yes. Okay. So I'm gonna get up now and she gets sit here. Wait, I gotta, I gotta ask everybody first. Okay. Oh my gosh, that was fast At this time. What? There are closed at this time. I'll ask Becky to, uh, test. So we all have to write down here? Yeah. Looking forward to this fold. Okay. Um, so this boat was conducted by paper ballot votes were counted by myself. Um, Angie received 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 votes. And then the president is Angie. Thank you. You're leaving all. Perfect. Gosh, I have so much stuff, Steve. It's alright. Okay. I forgot my name tag. I'll get it. Okay. Whatever Anything you can do. Okay. So, Alright. Do You have Oh, I do

003want that chair. Okay. Alright. Okay. Are there any nominations from the floor for vice president? I think Steve did such a great job. I would nominate. Okay. Are there any additional nominations for vice president? Are there any additional nominations for vice president hearing? No additional nominations. I seek a motion to close nominations. I like the motion. Okay. Do I have a second? I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Nominations for the office of vice president are closed at this time. Uh, board members, can you please cast your ballots for the office of vice president and pass 'em to? All right. This vote was conducted by paper ballot votes were counted by myself. Steve Yanke received six votes. Our vice president is Steve Yanke. All right. Are there any nominations? The next one

004is clerk. Are there any nominations from the floor for clerk? I nominate Jessica Fran. Okay. Are there any additional nominations for clerk? And then another time. Are there any additional nominations for clerk hearing? No additional nominations. I seek a motion to close nominations. I'll make a motion. Okay. Second. Second. Alright, all those in favor? A. Okay. Opposed? Nominations for the office of clerk are closed at this time. Then Board members cast your ballots for the Office of Clerk and pass to Becky. All right. This vote was conducted by the paper ballot. Both were counted by myself. Jessica Frame received six votes. And Jessica Frame is the clerk. Okay. And now we have treasurer. Are there any nominations from the floor for treasurer? I'd like to nominate Tom Becker. Okay. Are there any additional nominations for

005treasurer? And then one last time, are there any additional nominations for treasurer hearing? No additional nominations. I am looking for a motion to close nominations. Make a motion. Okay. I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. And opposed nominations for the office of Treasurer are closed. And please mark your ballot for the Office of Treasurer and pass your ballots to Becky. This vote was conducted by paper ballot votes were counted by myself. Um, Tim Ellen Becker received five votes. Um, we did abstain from the vote. And our treasurer is Todd Becker. Okay. So next is deputy clerk. And I am looking for a motion to appoint Becky Levin as Deputy Clerk I Motion. Okay, Jess second. Go Ahead and Steve. Yep. Alright. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Um, Becky Levin, you are

006our deputy clerk. Congratulations. Okay, congratulations to the board officers. All right, so the next item is appointment of committee and representative positions. The first one is cs, A nine representative. Okay, cool. Um, I think I have all this too, but CSA nine um, is governed by the board of control that consists of 11 board of education members from districts within the CS nine boundaries and board members are elected to three year terms at the CSA nine annual convention, which is held on the first Monday in August. I'd be willing to do that again. Okay. Alright. Um, so I am looking for a motion to nominate Tucker to serve as the board member representative to C nine. I make a motion. I Second. Yes. And then all those in favor of Tucker serving as the C

007nine representative say aye. Aye. And video post. Okay. So Tucker is gonna be the C nine rep and then the next one is the WBE rep representative and the WABE alternative. So that one is kinda along, it's on this paper. Um, so the wbe, this is the school board association. Um, and then there's a designate, like a delegate and then a backup for that. So last year was Tim. Mm-hmm. It was, is that usually the president? So I'd be willing to do that, to be the delegate. Would anybody be willing to do, I think I was the of the alternate last year. So would anybody be willing to be the alternate? I can do it. Okay. Steve. Okay. Every day. Okay. Okay. So I'm looking then for a motion to nominate, um, Angie as the

008delegate and Steve as the alternate. I'll make a motion Tucker and a second. I second. Okay. Um, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And all opposed? Okay. Motion carries. And then the last one is, um, the tid the tax incremental district for the Joint Review Review board of Athens. Um, and this was chum last year. I can stand. Okay. Unless somebody wants to join in. There's a meeting on May 30th. Okay. Okay then we're looking for a motion to nominate Tom to serve on that I motion. Yes. I'll second Tucker. Okay. Um, all those in favor of Tom serving as a tax incremental district joint review board member for the village of Athens. Say aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay. So Tom will be our ski that. Alright, the next item is the

009approval of minutes from the April 21st, 2025 regular board meeting. I'll second. Um, we're going to do a, a voice vote. So all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay. Motion carries. Now we're gonna open the floor for public comment and, um, we have one here, Dee Brewster. Um, speaking about eighth grade graduation. Um, on Behalf of myself, Ms. Gar Peter, in the eighth grade class, we cordially invite you all to eighth grade graduation, which is next Wednesday on May 28th. The class has been working very, very diligently on a class history, a prophecy. They are so in there, a very involved class. So we'd just like to invite you to join us next Wednesday evening. There's a little reception afterwards as well. Thank you. Thank you. You thank you. Okay. That concludes

010public comment. So now we have Recomme recognitions and commendations. And first we have Stankey. So I am pleased to share with the board of Education and our community that be Stankey has successfully completed Wabo University's school business office professional certificate. The Wabo U as its known school business office professional certificate program was conducted in live virtual environment for a total of 36 instructional hours. The curriculum consisted of four courses, including Wisconsin School District Governance, how school districts work, internal controls for the school business office, mastering woofer and budget development and monitoring. The program is recognized by the state superintendent of public instruction. Would you please help me to honor best in Thank you. And then we also have Jamie. Yes. On behalf of the school district of Athens and the Board of Education, I would

011like to recognize Jamie Ky, who has successfully completed the Wasco Facilities Manager Certificate program. The program was developed by our school facilities committee designed to provide facilities managers and those responsible for school facilities with current knowledge and best practice. This too is an educational program recognized by the state superintendent of public instruction. Please help me recognize Jamie an Thank you. You're welcome. Congratulations. May I have One more? Yes. Just, um, Aside. So, um, this past Saturday I had the privilege of attending NPC graduation for my my own daughter. But while I was there, I also then got to see two of our senior students walk the stage at MTC on Saturday. So I'd like to recognize Nathan Osborne, um, bridges programming, and I think his was, um, I like where it was welding Sunday. I'm

012probably gonna miss speak, but I think that's where his was at. And then Brooklyn Owens was another one. I think that his CNA, um, programming, um, and all of those kinds of things. So kudos to our kids and we're so excited. You know, you've made the mark when you have a, a kid like Nathan who sees me in the hallway and passing at NTC is like, Hey, like we did this. So it was super cool. So he was pretty excited and they get to graduate twice within a week sign. So exciting stuff for our kids and kudos to the Board of Education. We're supporting our kids in those ventures as they head over to other campuses to follow their path, which is super cool. So thank you guys. Very cool. Okay. Joy, do you have

013one also? I do. I just wanted to, um, draw two of our grant, uh, recipients this year. Uh, one is Kathy Luther, who will be attending tomorrow, um, American County Retired Education Association meeting to, um, do a follow up on her grant work. And the other is Mrs. Who's actually here. So I bet they would really love to hear from you. Otherwise I can read through that. What would you, Go ahead. Okay. Alright. So as, as part of the grant, um, that you received, we also need to do public recommended public accommodations. Um, so, um, this will be part of that grant process. So I thank you to Mrs. No for going above and beyond and doing that. But the first graders in her class were the recipients of a grant from Beyond Pencils and

014Grants. Mrs. Noack applied for a grant that could be used to purchase items to help students and their, some items purchased that proved to be beneficial for students for sensory items such as sensory strips on desks and items that aid in concentration, wobble chair, leg attachments, stretchy for weekly pees on the desks of the legs of desks, and a standing desk for times when a student would prefer to stand to do work rather than sit these tools assist students in ways that help them concentrate and find success in their learning. Mrs. Noah's class would like to thank the Beyond Pencils and Crays committee for their generosity and support of this project. So, and I appreciate you for going. Thank you. Any other recognitions and accommodations? I'm not sure if this would come out in the

015county special ed report, but I'd to recognize our, um, Jess Draper. She got county special Ed Para of the Year. Um, so that was very exciting for us and she has done a phenomenal job. And today is speech pathologist day. So our Vanessa man, um, she also be recognized for good stuff. Good stuff. Okay. So in the packet, um, the board members reports, there's the Marathon County Special Education Minutes And We are just acknowledging those, any discussion or comments? Alright. Um, Okay. Moving along. We're gonna go through the administrator's reports and starting with superintendent. Thank you. I'd like to first recognize donations to the district. Uh, season nine donated to the first of Athens $100 to be used for offsetting, uh, negative student lunch accounts. And we appreciate that very much. Michelle and Gary Eski

016also donated $50 to again, offset negative school lunch accounts. Very much appreciated. I'd like to recognize a river country co-op Athens female who also donated, uh, 35 bags of lime to line the fellow lines in the batter's box on the high school baseball and softball fields. So, great gratitude and will open the Board of education by administration for those very kind donations, um, that help us continue to, uh, maintain our facilities and do what's great for kids. So thank you very much. My report is going to focus on our strategic plan pillar number three, which is about facilities and operations. We've spoken in the last several months, um, about our partnership with CSA 10, who conducted a school district of Athens facility audit and assessment. The comprehensive 75 page report is in the board packets,

017and this evening we have guests from season 10 who are gonna provide an overview and summary of those findings. And then after their presentation, I'll speak with the board in the community about the next steps in this process. So it is my pleasure to welcome Lindsay and Johnson. Six 10. All right. Hello, everybody. Um, as Andrea was saying, my name is Lindsay Steiner and I am a facility advisor for CSA 10. Um, I have been with CSA 10 for almost five years, and before that I was actually in the business office of the Eau Claire School District for about eight years. Uh, my name's John ett. I'm a project manager. I did most of the onsite inspection. Uh, Jamie was very supportive of that, as well as the custodians in the building. Uh, I've been

018with CSA 10 since 2006. Uh, I've been a project manager and involved in facilities since 1981, so got a little over 40 years of chasing buildings around every, everything from Florence, the smallest school district in the state to 400 and some buildings in Milwaukee. Yeah, So John is definitely our resident expert. That's why I drag him along wherever I can and make him drive from Milwaukee whenever, whenever I can get him to. So, um, yeah, a little bit about, um, C to 10 and the facilities management department. We started doing this in, I believe it was 1990. Um, what started as kind of a small, um, very small department and, you know, helping out with like asbestos testing and, um, you know, environmental work and, um, energy efficiency work into what it is today. And

019I believe we have 50 some employees in our department now. Um, and we kind of specialize in helping you guys, helping school districts across the state with their facility needs, with their facility audits, with construction management, referendum planning, what whatever it is you guys need. Um, and how it kind of came to be was we were going into districts already and helping them with items, and we were noticing that there really isn't anybody sticking up for the school district. Right. Um, a little bit of an example, I am in need of a new hot water heater at home. We had some phone calls today and found out it was gonna be $140 an hour, and it was going to take a minimum of eight hours. Now, I would not know this. Did I not work

020for CSA 10 doing what we do? But I was like, there's no way it's gonna take you eight hours. That was the kind of thing we were finding in schools too. Um, and so we kind of made it our mission to stand up for school districts and say, no, it's not gonna take you that long. No, it should not cost that much. No, you do not need to do that change order. We try to make it our mission to make sure the districts are not being taken advantage of. So that brings us to today. Um, we were brought on by the Athens School District to conduct the facility audit. Um, John and I spent a few days up here kind of looking at things top to bottom. We got to meet with, um, a lot

021of your staff, by the way, your guys' staff is awesome. Um, Jamie, the custodians, the principals, the kitchen staff, everybody, rock stars. Um, they are definitely very passionate about the Fens school district, and they do a very good job keeping up with what they have. Um, that said, there, there are definitely some needs. Um, and we will go through those feedback. I told you I was gonna jump all over the place. We start talking and we just go all over. Um, so, uh, yes, perfect slide. Um, we kind of went over the background. Construction managers and o owners representatives. Those are the two agreements that we offer as far as after the facility audit, what happens next? We try to tailor our services to be whatever it is you guys need. No school district is

022the same, so, um, we can be involved in as much or as little as you want. Um, so yeah, referendum planning services, and then of course, environmental health and safety is huge with us. Um, we incorporate that in everything that we do because I don't know that I've been in a building yet that didn't have some sort of asbestos or lead or something. Um, so yep, we were brought in to be kind of the subject matter experts, um, and help in the decision making and future planning. You wanna talk about the criteria? I will. Yeah. So as we went through your buildings, one of the, one of the key starting points that we took was interviewing staff. And, um, as Lindsay's mentioned, the staff was excellent. They gave us a lot of information, a lot

023of insight. Um, they were very open with what they had, and they were very open showing us your buildings. Uh, it doesn't always happen that way. Um, it's kind of unfortunate when we come into buildings, we're looking for the worst stuff we can find. You know, it's not, it's not a positive thing to run around and point 20, 25 different things out. Working with the maintenance staff and the custodial staff, they were very, very helpful in showing us what the needs were and making everything very, very available to us. Um, I don't know how many pictures you took, but it was a lot. A lot. So there was a lot of stuff to cover. Uh, when we look at ranking and prioritizing the different items in our assessment project, cost, of course, is right up

024front. I don't know of any districts that don't think about cost right out of the blocks. I mean, it's the area that you excel in. If you have a few bucks, that's the area that falls apart without a few bucks. So that's very important. Uh, the EHS the environmental health safety concerns, again, there, we're looking for things that may put you at risk, uh, looking for things that may be more costly to actually work those areas. Uh, most important with those concerns is to wrap 'em up and, and minimize, you know, best we can. Functional condition. Uh, pretty simple. Does it work? Doesn't it work? How's it been modified? Is there, uh, other improvements that can be made, uh, to make it work better? Are there, uh, items in the building that really need to

025be just discarded? They've been dis uh, decommissioned, no longer in use. Just pull 'em out, get 'em out of the way. And then lastly, return on investment. Uh, the easiest one there, and it's still, uh, a gangbuster for most districts is extending the LED lighting. It's a very simple, easy to do has, uh, internal enhancements, it has teaching enhancements that usually go with it. Uh, other returns on investment would be insulating energy savings. Anywhere that we see, uh, efficiencies that can be made in layout, um, actual workforce efficiencies, uh, those items are also considered. And then, uh, how well equipped is the department to actually manage, do things either internally or with the use of, uh, external contractors for, for function? This next page is probably the, the really important one. The, the costings is

026that, does everybody have access to that? Um, looking at the three facilities, the high school, middle school, elementary school, and Maple Grove Charter School, across the top, there's columns, uh, they're color coded. The first column is one to one to two year priorities. Oh, I'm sorry. Then I should mention the page for that. Let everybody find that. These, yeah, these, these reports are kind of confusing. They're comprehensive, but, uh, with us working with 'em every day, it just seems so simple. But I know it's, it's a lot, it's a lot to digest, but it's also a lot to just chase around and find the right page. On that note, John, um, you might hear us talk about fims a lot FI is facility improvement measure. And that's one of the things that even when we

027were talking with, with Andrea and the, the rest of the staff where it kind of just rolls off our tongue. Oh, it's a fi What's a fi, facility improvement measure. So if we're talking like, oh, you need, you need new flooring, that might be a fim. So, so you'll, you'll see that massive matrix or table in there that's got the FIMS listed. Mm-hmm. For each one, there's a description of what we've observed, of what we saw or what we heard, and then a recommendation to resolve that. And then there's also a, a cost estimate. Um, as you might guess, the cost estimate can vary greatly depending on scope and what all you want to put in to those measures. Uh, we use, uh, a, a an average average of what's happened across the district. So

028we do take into consideration not just the size of the school, but also the occupancy of the school. Uh, we look at the overall operations as observed. And most importantly, what are those functional conditions in, in those pool? So back to the table. Um, when we prioritize everything, uh, all of the fms, those facility improvement measures that we feel are most critical, are all listed. And that cost is summarized in that one to two year column. So, um, per our advice, those are the things that really should be handled as soon as possible. Um, again, there may be things that we don't know about that would cause a delay or waiting for another, um, adjacent project to occur. But those are the, those are the priority items. Uh, the next group is a three to

029five year. So those are the, those are typically the projects that are gonna require a little bit of advanced planning. You can't just flip a switch and throw some money at it and get it done. You're gonna have to pull out the pencil and make, make some decisions and have some design work done. Uh, we're finding in this day and age, three to five years, you can be pushed into three to five years on just availability of equipment. So there's some electrical components in, in our, uh, report that we would anticipate. Some very delayed responses, even when you're ready to purchase and put in, uh, five to 10 year, those are, again, the items that we know from a lifecycle standpoint are going to wear out, or they're items that have worn out and you

030haven't found the time or the money to actually make those improvements. Um, not quite as important on the priority. And then additional, additional is our attempt to identify areas that we feel you should consider. It's like expansion of square footage, uh, changing major layouts, doing, um, group type renovations. Uh, again, there's a lot of areas in these buildings that can, um, can be upgraded and updated as I, I know you all would be aware of that. And then the total estimates are often that far. The far right hand column. Uh, looking at the schools and how this actually lays out from, uh, logical, uh, standpoint, you've got a fairly equal amount of expense in each of the buildings. Uh, the one, uh, item that's in the Maple Grove is already a project that was moving

031forward on the playground upgrade. So looking at the size of that school and seeing that that number is pretty close in relationship to the elementary and the high school, it's really that one project that pushes that, that total to where it is. When you get into the three and five year, uh, again, at both the high school, middle school and the elementary school, you're looking at well over a million dollars. And, uh, again, when you get to five to 10, um, the elementary school has some items that we feel are more priorities. Um, conditions are such that that million dollars in that in the three to five year is, uh, being requested as, as something to do quicker, sooner. And then when you get into the five to 10 year for the elementary school, the

032expenditures aren't as great. The high school and the middle school are more even in year to year or grouping or grouping of, uh, dollar value and also priority. I know that can be confusing. Uh, the best thing you can do for us is ask questions and, uh, we can answer those and we'll take questions tonight and we'll take questions after tonight. So if those things come up, please, please, uh, ask those questions. Um, couple things about the, the costs that you will see. The costs are just, um, hard construction costs only. So those are not gonna include any labor, materials, equipment, um, any evaluation. You will see a lot of costs in report that are, um, like to evaluate or, you know, to dig more into. Obviously John and I don't have the capability to

033scope pipes and things like that. So, um, uh, keeping that in consideration, um, is, is definitely key. The costs can definitely go up from obviously your evaluation. Um, this is kind of baseline cost. Um, another example would be, you know, flooring, flooring is needed. We're not gonna put a cost for you guys to have terrazzo flooring if you wanted to do that. It's beautiful, but it is very expensive. You can, you can get by with Epoxy and Epoxy's. Awesome. You know, so, um, that kind of thing. We're, we're not gonna, uh, provide kind of the upscale costs per se. Um, but also there's a lot of unknowns right now. So we tried to base the costs on projects that we're doing right now, or have done very recently. Um, but as you guys know, uh,

034especially since Covid, and now we have the tariffs and all of that lead times and, and, um, you know, overall costs can be tricky Just to, uh, quickly identify some of the project types that, that we saw. Uh, I already mentioned there's electrical supply upgrades that we really think need to occur fairly short order. We've got a lot of restroom updates, especially looking at the, uh, elementary school and, and at Maple Grove here as well. Uh, kitchen updates. The kitchens are in compliance, um, under like a grandfather type clause. So there's a lot of things that can be done in those kitchen and food service areas. Bring 'em up to not only current code, but also, um, improve some efficiency in layout and delivery. Uh, so that's an area that, uh, again, is gonna be

035a question that we think you should pursue. Uh, 'cause it's something we need to do or wanna do. And, and if so, when, uh, heating, ventilation and air conditioning upgrades, uh, again, that equipment has aged, you've gotten life out of the equipment that you have in place. You've done some, uh, control upgrades and some, uh, updates as time has passed, but there's still a lot out there that needs to be done. Uh, roofing replacements, I gotta say, your roofing plans have been pretty good. That's one schedule that I, I really like. That's the good thing. The bad thing is that roofs are very expensive and they're very big. So in a district this size, planning for when that big roof expense is gonna occur is really significant. And, uh, again, in the report we've laid

036out a timeline for that, but you've also got an internal document for that schedule that Jamie and, and some of you all may have, may have worked through. Um, there's some new playground equipment that's needed at the elementary school, for sure. Additional space. Um, the additional space I, as it stands right now looks like a reassignment and possibly update and renovate. Uh, if there's any moves to do anything like a consolidation, there would be some, some space balance that would have to occur, occur, uh, if there's new construction ideas that are coming out. Uh, again, I think you've got plenty of flex space in your existing buildings so that you can get through a, a two year, three year construction cycle if you needed to do that. Uh, plumbing upgrades. There are a couple areas

037that we really need to take a good look at plumbing and, and make sure that, that, that piping is, is in place and those upgrades are made, uh, again, a more additional or more invasive, uh, look at those needs to occur. Uh, fff and e that's another acronym. I apologize for that. It's, uh, uh, furniture fixtures and equipment. So it's all of these things that aren't really attached to the, to the structure. There's a lot of cabinetry, a lot of furniture upgrades, uh, a lot of things that can be done to, um, make it more comfortable for the teachers. There's a lot of teachers, desks, chairs, those things that need to be upgraded. Uh, that's another, uh, expense that's out there that at some point you're gonna have to fight the bullet and take care

038of some of those items. Any questions of it? Up to this point? How many of these are like immediate safety concerns, if any, in regards to must do? Uh, nothing. Nothing. Nothing that I had to write a letter and say, or get this taken care of 'cause I saw it. But there's those one to two year items that I really think should be looked at and marked for schedule. Um, you'll have to decide what gets done right away. Um, it's, it's, uh, it's a lengthy list and I don't know, your financial resources are probably the, the biggest concern or the biggest limiter, and that's not uncommon. I'm not saying that, you know, you back yourself in that situation. There's a lot of districts that are, are just like that. Mm-hmm. So how to work out

039of that and how to make the big decisions of how you wanna work out of that. Um, unfortunately, it's, it's right in front of you guys, uh, as a board. And then everyone over here that's working in these schools, um, they're very much aware, I think, of the conditions, and I think they're also aware of what, um, today's needs are. You know, so that's good. It's not a lot of difference. Everybody seems to know what's going on. It's just a matter of planning it, laying it out, and then hopefully procuring funding to do it the way you want to get it done. Yeah. I wanna preface this by saying too, I haven't delivered a facility audit yet where I didn't come in and there was like the look of terror on people's faces, right? Um,

040it is not uncommon. You are not the only district in this boat. Um, pretty much most of the districts, especially the rural districts in the state of Wisconsin, unfortunately, are, are in the same boat right now. Um, having this list of improvement measures not uncommon. You guys are not alone. Um, and you, you're not doing anything wrong either, you know, there, unfortunately, the way things are, this is, um, this state of a lot of our districts right now. Um, but the good news is, um, you're making a plan, you know, you're, you're strategizing and you are looking for a way to move forward, Fix, and you've been working from a plan, Right? So again, we, we were fortunate to see what your tenure plan was, and it lined, you know, all of that stuff is

041in here. We just added more. Yeah. So, yes, sorry about that. But again, that's, that's what we were actually called in for. So, yeah, exactly. And, um, again, these are all things that we can, um, assist you with as well. Um, we would be happy to help you continue to, um, develop your long-term plan, you know, get things done, um, you know, work with the funding options, look into rebates. Um, we've got awesome focus on energy rebates that are happening right now. Um, we work with districts to, um, write grants all the time, just to get any of the funding that you possibly can. Um, and that's a, it's a good message to the community too, you know, like, look, we, we tried to do this, this, this, and this. There's nothing else we can

042do. We, we have to go to the community at this point. And that's kind of the decision that you guys have, have to make. Um, John touched on it on it a little bit, but I wanted to go back to the con consolidation conversation. John and I kind of went back and forth quite a bit. Um, it's not a bad idea, and I'm not saying like, oh, you should consolidate, um, again, your guys' decision. It's not a bad idea to possibly explore what those costs would look like, just based on what we've seen. Um, again, totally up to you guys, and John can speak to this a little bit more. Um, and he, at the end of this, we do have an example that he did for, um, another school district close by, kind of

043in the same, same boat, um, just cost savings and, you know, might not be a bad idea to look into. Um, and then go from there. Um, Where are we at? Sorry, Jackie. Okay. Um, so yeah, these are all things that we can definitely help with. Um, we, I know you guys work with Bair. We work with Baird all the time. They're amazing. Um, we can, um, take care if you do go to referendum, we can take care of all the marketing. Um, we work with everybody, all the companies that do surveys and things like that. Um, the project development agreement, that is just something that we offer, um, that bundles, referendum planning, and then construction management together. Um, because you guys did a facility audit with us, um, we would take care of that

044four or $5,000. So that would do, that would give you, um, everything with the referendum planning, um, and then construction management as well. So we would be the bad guys for you should you want to go down that road. Um, and again, yeah, we are very experienced utilizing federal funding. Hopefully we still have federal funding. Um, and yeah, John, um, we'll go back into the, the spend summary in a minute, but just touching on, uh, some of the other things that we do with the referendum outreach. Um, we can help you with the community meetings, the surveys, facility advisory committee. We can set all of those up should you wish to continue working with CSA 10. This is everything that's included. Okay. Uh, those are just some examples of districts that we have worked with

045recently. And then kind of a big one for the construction management, we charge 2.5%. So we only bring on architects and engineers when their service is actually needed. So again, you need new flooring. Architect does not need to put a 15% or 18% or 24% charge on there. Um, we, we don't allow it. So that's typically how we save districts. Uh, a lot of money. Um, we charge 2.5% plus five of material. And that would be, that would be it. We are a cso, we are a nonprofit, so we need to pay for our time and we love what we do, and we would like to continue doing what we do. Yeah. State, state agency. So put, put us to use. Yes, Absolutely. Becky, were we gonna put that, that schedule up at all that

046I sent today? Or not put it in of the, it's, it's really a busy spreadsheet. Um, but it's an example that I did wanna share. The decision of what you're gonna do with your buildings in the next several years is really important. And I, I think as you wait, you're gonna have less and less options. So it's a good time. Now, I, I, again, with this assessment in hand with the experience that you've had in the conversations we've had, I think it's a good time now to find out what direction you really want to go after. Um, you, you don't want to be spending a little bit of money here and there and everywhere and find out that you're gonna get rid of a building or you want to do some major renovations inside a

047building and keep it for 20 or 50 more years. Um, these are big discussion items that you have to talk through. I was really happy to hear that Baird is already involved in looking at the funding analysis. Uh, again, that's gonna be strategic in making your decision to put some kind of a comparison together. What if we did this? What if we did this? What if we did this? And it's a, it's a big decision thing, not just what happens with facilities and what do the maintenance guys have to worry about and what does construction have to worry about? It's the operation of the entire district that's really gonna be affected positive, negative, or indifferent. So that, you know, that big decision stuff has to work. I think the analysis with Baird and the funding

048opportunities and what happens there is real important. This sheet, uh, is an example, uh, of what we call a spend forecast. And what this sheet does is it identifies what's your deferred maintenance, which is essentially the total of this list of facility improvements. What's the asset value, value, the common asset value of your buildings, like replacement per square footage. And then it looks at how would you have to spend to be able to eliminate that deferred maintenance. Uh, we look at just, just, again, this is a guiding tool, looking at it as a guiding tool. We say, well, if you wanna eliminate deferred maintenance over 10 years, this will be the spend forecast. If you're gonna do it in five years, this will be the spend forecast. If you're gonna do it in three years,

049this will be the spend forecast. Um, again, I, I think only of facilities, but looking at a district, to me it sounds like, you know, the tenure is what, you know, what am I gonna do with a few operational dollars, but primarily my general operating dollars, my budget, my annual allocation, when I look at the three year, um, typically that's a, a referendum, or I'm going to do something big and with that I'm gonna knock out a bunch of deferred maintenance. Um, and then the, the, the, uh, five year would be just a little bit longer possibly a, uh, operations type referendum that's got a, a detailed spend for facilities or getting rid of that deferred maintenance. The thing that this chart shows, and the reason it's drawn out the way it is, is if

050you take a 10 year period to eliminate your deferred maintenance, and you have your facilities, which are every year going to cost you about 2% of what that asset value is, when you go across the full 10 year scale and look at all those dollars in that depreciation load, you're spending more money than if you would've had the three year plan where you had some referendum money, you knocked out your deferred maintenance, and then you got down to a lower amount of dollars that you needed to maintain the building with over the, the following 10 years. So it's, it's kind of an eyeopener. Even looking at it from a deferred maintenance facility standpoint that a little bit more money on the front end is gonna save you a lot of money in the back end.

051If you can get that capital Baird, they're gonna dive in even deeper. So they're gonna look at, um, different costs of capital scenarios and different schedules. Um, broad base for the district, this is just our little, uh, maintenance piece. So anytime I know a district's doing a referendum and I know they have a deferred maintenance, I'm more than happy to tell people why that should be taken care of. 'cause you'll get more in the end, um, than than build a new building. And don't worry about the deferred maintenance and let those inflationary, uh, depreciation issues creep up and, and take everything back away from you in a couple years. So that's just some word of advice on this. And again, we're, we're here to help mm-hmm. With these kind of things too, so we can

052lay it out And yeah, that's definitely something we can help you with and, and continue working on. Um, like I said, we, um, we try to tailor our services to whatever it is you guys need because everybody is so different. Um, the one thing that most of the districts that we work with have in common is their needs are a lot greater than what they can afford. So yeah. Does anybody have any questions? Go back to the third slide from the end, please. I'm gonna sit down until I stop walking in front of the camera. I was driven fall, so that's not fun. I'm gonnar The referendum outreach that I suppose I was in the last half. It's the engineering costs, typically Engineering, yes. Typically, you, you're gonna see, uh, the CE on something like

053this to be anywhere from 15 to 25% pre-construction. Uhhuh, uh, change orders are the killer. Yep. How do you eliminate change orders? Because if you're only bringing in engineering services and architectural services when needed, generally that is a premium price because you're bringing them in last minute. Okay. Um, that's typically handled by design and front end planning. So the more detailed planning and the more design you put in that project on the front end, the less need for change orders and the long end. The, again, I'm gonna speak in general terms because I see a lot of different buildings and, and districts and they're all different. You know, the, the game in town for the last five years, for sure, the last 10 years was to do a design build referendum. So design build is

054great. It's very quick, it's quick because it's simple. You essentially say, here's X million dollars, I want my design builder to build me this, this, and this. And that's what they do. And if they say, if you say no change orders, there'll be no change orders. You'll get exactly what that scope started with. Even though halfway through you might have some things you'd like to change, and you're pretty well locked in. It's very quick. It's very expensive. A lot of communities don't like it because a lot of the costs are buried. It's not as transparent. You know, you make, you make a go decision and for three to five years you're on go and there's no looking back. And it was great when money was there, you know, the old, the old way, I'm old,

055I know it very well. It's truly a design bid build. It's slower. You put your design in place to prevent those change orders. You did during the bid award. You got an opportunity, a go, no, go wait, make your changes there. Don't do it in the middle of the project. You know, probably didn't know what would cost that much or I didn't know we could do three, three times more than we expected. You've got that, that piece. And then in the, in the back end is the bill piece, which is pretty much the same. So as I'm seeing districts looking at consolidation and referendums are more and more difficult and that big balloon doesn't get off the ground, I'm finding it's more practical to go back to that design bid build. Mm-hmm. Um, again, it

056was a mystery to me knowing how tied schools are to local government and how tied they are to the community that that bid piece, you know, went away. I just thought that was a very instrumental piece in letting everybody know what we're doing and what those costs are and competing, um, you know, it's more work on the front end, but on the back end I think you get what you want. You overall, you pay pay less. And as a district you keep control, uh, which I think is important. I Agree. We are not by any means saying there are no change orders. I mean, oh, there's no way to get around change orders. Unfortunately, We spent enough equity time equity in the beginning of the project to make sure you're happy with what you have

057before you start building It. I'll tell you that, uh, from my experience that we've got a lot of change orders, but it's spending money that's left over Yes. To do things that we weren't gonna be able to do. Yes. Because we don't take that money. Is That a good use of those additional funds? Because you're still technically paying a premium for it where you could postpone that, use the funds in a different project somewhere and get a build a bid project where you're getting a better price on your Cost. With the true design bid build, you have a contingency that you control. Mm-hmm. That's different than design build where there's amount of money and whatever that amount is, that's what gets billed. But Technically you're not gonna go over 5% for a contingency fund no

058matter what if you're doing design build. So, Uh, we, well, we usually model our contingency based on the f or the scopes. Yeah. When you 36 90 Level Yeah. It, but when you get to a design and build portion of the project, you should be no more than 5% left in contingency. You should be knowing what that money's going For. Once, once we bid. Yeah. We're, I love that. I mean, we know what the prices are and the contracts behind those bids. Once they're set, then you're really well Then the unit costs are there. If You decide then you're Clean, decide to read through the men's bathroom, but the same tile as the women's bathroom, you have the unit cost. You don't have to bag extra for it. Correct. It's the outside information coming in

059that really throws you off. Right. You're right. Right. So that's, I don't know, to me it's kind of a change, um, that I'm seeing more and more consolidation. Again, it time Equity, you have less time on a design build project than you do in a design bid build. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You just don't always get what you want in the design build. It's for any, any of these, what I would call additional improvements. You know, if you said you wanted to do it today, it's three years out with the design to build, but I think you'll get what you want. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And people will know what you're doing, But not everybody has the time or, you know, wherewithal to wait. So we, I mean, we try to do the, the best we can with all

060of that. And that's where we have seen the most cost savings for school districts and being able to complete those contingency projects. Um, but you know, it's not always the case. Mm-hmm. Any, any other questions? Thank you for that question. That was good. Yeah, that was a very good question. I guess we're good. Unless you got something. And again, if there are any questions, let the superintendent know and she'll get a hold of us. Yeah, We Did. She'll make Becky get a of Us one way Or another. Becky's great by the way. She's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you too. Congratulations on the new roles. Also never seen that happen before. Cool. Go back to my superintendent report and forecast out the next, uh, several

061months as the board of education and community of upcoming both presentations and gathering of more information. Um, as we just heard our presentation tonight from CSA 10 around our audit and assessment. Um, you heard our partners from season 10 reference, um, our financial partners, um, Baird. Um, we've already, um, secured a presentation during the June board meeting. Uh, Lisa Mene will be joining us. Those of you that have been on the board, uh, she'll be coming in in front of our school board and our community to talk about our five year financial forecast and also then be able to answer some questions around some of the information we received this evening as well. Um, you heard John reference, um, the spend forecast and deferred maintenance. That was the last slide he shared. Um, he did

062a nice job foreshadowing, uh, he will be back in July to put some current numbers up related to the schoolers of Athens so that we can see some short term and long term potential gains, um, if we were to complete some projects and not have deferred maintenance for several years into the future. Um, and I'm already using that word referendum as you've heard this evening. Um, we'll be begin, uh, to talk more in depth about potential referendum in the future. Um, as a general reminder, we are concluding year two of four year non-reoccurring operational referendum. So, um, we have time, um, the time is the essence for the board and the community to understand not only present state, but also future. Um, with that in mind, in August, um, I preface this. We had a,

063uh, district facilities operations advisory committee meeting prior to this board meeting this evening. I shared with them, uh, the potential to rework the responsibility and roles of that advisory and also expand the advisory membership to include others, um, parents, community members, and the work of that advisory moving forward as well. Um, something that I'd also like to begin late summer, potentially in September, um, I'd like to host monthly superintendent student advisory, um, where I'll be working with Mrs. Gar Peter. And I'll be meeting potentially with our presence of each of our classes and maybe some additional students together, student input as we move forward, not only, um, around the things that are happening day to day, but also for the future of the school district. And then we'd like to conduct, um, a, a district,

064uh, community survey in fall to gather input from our community to help inform, again, not only our, our current state, but our future state as well. So, again, tentative, um, guidelines here of things that will be forthcoming. Uh, certainly this has the potential to ebb and flow with other types of presentations and information gathering along the way. I wanna provide the board some direction in the next several months. Are there any additional questions or comments from the board? If the answer, Andrea? Um, now we're going to hear from, um, Robins for Make Grove Charter School Safety drill. Yes. So we conducted our second annual safety drill. Um, this one we were really, um, focused on using the Raptor app, um, that is new and making sure that, um, we were using it to, um, know

065what children we had with us. Um, we also, another, um, area that we wanted to focus on is, um, putting the announcement out there with teachers having to decide if they were going to evacuate or if they're gonna stay put based on, um, where the intruder was located in the building. Um, so at that time they did not know where the intruder was going to be coming into the building. Um, so they had to make that determination on the spot. Um, so therefore our third, fourth and fifth grade, um, according to where the intruder was entering, stayed in their classrooms and locked down our kindergarten first and separators evacuated the building and went to our safety spot. Um, this was also a time for our, um, kindergartners who hadn't been to that safety zone area

066to actually, um, go out there and see the location and know where they needed to go. Uh, with that, our Raptor app, um, works really well. Um, one of the students was actually marked missing one of our fifth graders. And um, so I went and followed up with that one. And it turns out the student was in the bathroom at the time that the drill had been, um, had been activated. And, um, based on the situation we did in the fall, um, this was one of the students I had pulled to go knock on the doors to see if they would open the doors, um, to a student trying to get in, um, where they are not supposed to open it after they shut them and lock them. And, um, so this student knew that

067he would not be able to get into any of the classrooms 'cause he was going to be locked out. He found, um, a safe area in an art closet that he, um, hid out until the all clear was made. Um, so yes, he was marked missing 'cause the teacher didn't know where he had gone to. Um, but he had found a safe area. So that was really cool to see and, and see how it worked on the wrap draft. So we knew that if something tragic would happen, we would need to find where a student was hiding or where they Were. So That was that our drill in the Nashville Joy. Alright, So we also used the V app and um, our scenario was that there was an intruder came in near door D, which

068is our student drop off pickup, our parents. Um, so staff then were directed to follow safety procedures and decided their location should they evacuate or should they lock down. And they also used the wrap, uh, the app to account themselves and others. Um, notice that we have a little bit of tweaking yet to do with the Raptor app and also, um, just, you don't always have a device with you, your phone or your computer. So that's something to dig into that make sure you find somebody or, or have that device handy. Um, we notify the other schools in town. The schools and Maple Grove and the high school were notified via the app. Um, we did have one classroom that our ed class went, uh, they evacuated across the street. Um, others went into lockdown

069and partway through, um, I went over the PA to direct teachers. What would you do with the next step if kids were, if you were to evacuate from where you were at? We had, uh, three or four students that were in third grade and it was already a transition time and the door was already shut from, they could not get in. So, um, they were kudos to them and their teacher group what next plans and they, um, the office door was still open, so they came in the office right behind the counter and like crawl to the vault. So we talked about, um, that, and they did it really well. They weren't, um, they kind, at first we were a little bit struggled, but then they, they're like, okay, what do we do next? Um,

070so, and that's really a, a lot large part of it is there is no black and white answer. Um, but can we promote that thinking and the problem solving in the moments from an empowered students and staff to do what they need to do? So that was really, really good. Um, next drill. We'd like to give more accountability on who's all in the building out of the building, use that Raptor app. Um, and I know that there's plants to continue to to grow that, but I really a nice device. Um, let's see. And we're gonna continue to work on the unification and um, we are evacuation now that we have a different location in town that we can utilize to really kind of structure that better. Um, and consider the communications for people that are

071driving demand or substitute teachers, other people that aren't normally in our, in our building. How we continue to make that, um, a stronger communication link and others, there's just minor things too to tweak with it, but, um, I, I'm just really proud of our students and staff is that is such a eerie feeling to watch the building when you know that somewhere another 150 kids and adults and you don't hear a thing, not a thing. So, um, kudos to everyone. Um, and we did not do a, we let parents know that we would be having one but not, um, what you used to. It was just pretty general. We have one and it's all good questions. Any questions? High school. Alright, so, um, as the others, right, we implemented our drill saying there was an

072intruder at the front lobby area. Um, you know, every once in a while we allow a student in it would not be a mess if somebody were to trail in right behind, even though we caution kids to not allow that. Um, so, um, and staff went into the lockdown procedures. Um, Jamie assisted me with the walkthrough the first time. I like to level it back. So after we do the first walkthrough here, I put us back into a stay foot, which then tells folks like, you can go back to your teaching responsibilities, but your drawer remains shut and locked. Um, and that allows people then to tell us if they have any needs in their classroom. So Jamie and I did the second walkthrough. We have red and green cards. So, um, you know, I

073would foresee us in the future amping that up by inviting the fire EMS to come in and assist and having folks maybe stage that they have a potential need in their classroom using the red card. Um, so that would be, you know, something to look forward to. But all staff and to Joyce point, right? It, it, it's pretty eerie in here that even though we plan it, I don't know about these ladies, but trying to use that app and my fine motor skills in the midst of a drill, even for me, it gets tough. And I can, and I've talked with several staff members too, that the app is great for accounting, but we're all like, we don't use it every day. And so where do I start and what do I do? And obviously

074the more we use it, the better we're getting at it. Um, just to, as a side note for you guys too, we use it also for, um, our tornado drill and our fire drills. So we're getting more used to that and that accountability piece. So the more we use it, the better we're getting and staff are figuring out some of the fine points to that. Adding locations, which has been great. Our percentage continues to rise as staff get more, more comfortable with the app. Um, however, we had one outside person who ended up getting her way into the building because she was meeting with the student and she's from an outside agency. So that to another one, Jerry's point, how do we make sure, 'cause we used to put up signs saying drill in progress,

075fail out. Well we all know like that's, that's not actual practice 'cause we got something going on. Um, so I talked to the lady and I said, well, I said, in the future if that ever happens and you're buzzing in and we don't let you in, you might just want to assume we got something going on and you're gonna be, you know, your best bet is gonna be waiting your vehicle until you know you get a response from somebody. Um, but to that point, like how might we communicate with an outside agency and do they have a connection internally with at least one person that could give them a heads up And I don't know, we're working through the books. Um, but it was a great scenario to have him question, um, at that point.

076So we did, we detained that person in the front office like, you're staying put right here. Like, the rest of 'em are so, you know, where would you safe location be and things of that nature. So, um, again, kids did well. Um, I always appreciate Jamie's help if we get through the building a lot quicker that way. Um, we gave staff a little extra time. One of my last ones was to make sure they had accounted for the student as in Raptor as they were, you know, sometimes it gets pretty frantic and they're not a hundred percent sure. So I wanted to give them a little extra time. So total time. I think it said our joke for about 22 minutes and start to finish just to make sure we had time for them to

077use the app. I just realized I had a question on the Maple Grove document. So this will be an action item. These are all the action items later. Mm-hmm. Um, for the Maple Grove document, when was the actual drill done? 'cause there's a couple, there's a two different dates and now the tops says April 25th and then the bottom says April 29th. So Yeah, we had Oh, Was the 25th one that was you did it. Okay. So yeah, we actually did not ninth. Okay. So the bottom part where it says like certification, that part is correct, but I don't know if we wanna change the actual, the other part of it to reflect that update. Did anybody have any comments or questions? Thank you. And we'll be taking action on that one later. All of

078those three later. Okay. So we're moving to information and discussion items. And the first item is the Athens Elementary School English and Language Arts curriculum adoption. Alright. So I would like to, um, recognize, uh, joy Redmond and the Athens K five ELA curriculum adoption committee members who are here. They're going to provide the board, um, with a presentation describing the process they followed throughout this year. Um, and then we will ask during the action items for the board to take action on the adoption of a new elementary curriculum to Joy and team. Thank you. Thanks for being here. I love if you go to the next slide that has the art team that all here. No Problem. So our team was guided by who has worked with us, um, over the last few years too.

079And she's a, uh, literacy and reading specialist and she works really close this year on the Laurie Jacoby, who is our district reading teacher. So, um, and Carla AK is represented our first grade and our lower, um, grades and Carla's in the back here. And Renee, uh, third grades, she represented the, the middle grades and Jackie represented fifth grade and the upper grades. So thank you. There's a lot of time, a lot of new, uh, words that were used in d just a big process. Um, so we learned, I learned a lot through the process. Um, and I know, I think together we had some really good conversations, some good questions. Um, it was a good process. So, um, vetting committees ensure that what is students' best of relevant, meaningful, rigorous, accessible, equitable, worthwhile and

080cohesive. Those are all characteristics of a high quality curriculum. So we followed that, that was our main goal together. So we came together, we reviewed the Act 20 requirements that we've been talking about this last two years. And, um, how does that fit into our K three ELA, um, requirements. Where, where are we locally with our data? What are our needs? What do we want? Um, what is our, the culture of our school? What is the culture of our, um, teaching and how do we embrace that and expand, um, and what are we, what are we looking for in a new resource? So those were big questions we asked. So, um, we, we had to crosswalk between, uh, very learned rubric documents, um, and what we have with state the, our standards and just get

081exposed to what is it that we currently have, what do we need, what do we want, and, um, what's gonna work best for, uh, uh, elementary. So after that, we, uh, selected three to five curriculums. So we ruled out curriculums that, uh, we did not feel would be the most appropriate for Athens Elementary School. Um, and we did that using different rubrics. We had materials that were brought in from the companies and we had presentations that were also given, and we were able to interact, ask questions, review materials, try things out. And that's where this team was very, very valuable because they, um, they're in the, in the classrooms every day. They know where their, uh, spoons are. They, they're just really able to kind of pinpoint the materials that we have now. Um, especially

082our grade three to five current reading materials are, are definitely not, um, up to date. So they had, uh, they had some pretty high standards. So I was really appreciated that this is what we were going with. We wanted, um, then we needed to rate those curriculums. And we had the team conversation, even though government was really good about posing, um, like, kind of like the, the what if, how about how come, why not, what do you think those, those thinking questions. Um, then our team went back to others, uh, at school and just kind of shared some feedback. Um, what are you looking for? What do you think about this? And um, so it was really good conversations. And then we selected the most appropriate to fit our needs. So that, um, next page

083just shows a little bit of some of the data that we have used. And some of this data comes from our continuous improvement plan that we work with Audrey and our CSA nine staff, um, showing that we still need, um, and this is only for the elementary is third grade, um, but showing that ELA is continuing needs to be an area that we have to focus on. Um, moving to the next one, the next slide shows some of the trend data with our four scores and students with disabilities and students without disabilities. So when we started our continuous improvement plan 70 years ago after being identified, uh, students with disabilities was a definite focus and it continues to be a focus of ours. So we need to know how is this, uh, new curriculum going

084to fit into all students? How are all staff going to be able to utilize that, including specialized staff and, um, our, our encore staff could support that as well. But we definitely wanted to ensure that we are targeting students with, uh, with disabilities. Little background, um, in 2013 is when reading Street K through six was adopted in 2018. Super Kids was adopted. Um, and then happily ever after is our pre-K or 4K version. Um, we're going to continue with Happily Ever After at this time. Um, the, the new curriculum does not include a a 4K version, so, um, we will continue to see what, what the needs are in there. Uh, super Kids is a, an excellent curriculum and um, Carla is probably the, the one who would speak most to super kids. Um, it

085does have a social emotional learning component in it. Um, so it's very, that was one of the big decisions we had to decide was do you stay with a solid curriculum and, and include the updates, um, but still have two separate curriculums, or do we unite and have one curriculum? So did you wanna say anything about our super kids? I think it's been a, a very viable curriculum to use. It's been helpful, beneficial for kids, very engaging. So it was a difficult decision. But, um, I think the new curriculum that we chose will engage students and also meet those standards of action and science of reading research that's been helpful. So I think that's important to know because, um, definitely we need to, um, expand our, our reading street curriculum. Um, but super Kids, if,

086if you hear out in the community like, well this, this was a recommended, this falls under, I'm sorry, it's on one list, not the other list. So, um, it is a, an excellent program. Why you drop it, how come you didn't? Because we were going to a more cohesive, um, across all grade levels. So that's the major, um, component there. So Act 20, we've seen this before. Um, the explicit and systematic instruction to include nine areas of the science based for literacy instruction. And we can no longer use the three queuing system. And to go to the next slide, talking about the three queuing system was, uh, so instead of just looking at a a word and making more guesses about it and looking at the pictures and making sense. So those were the three

087base skills at once were, um, kind of the, the philosophy behind teaching reading have shifted to the science of reading. And then on the right hand side of the nine components that include language comprehension and word recognition and intertwining all of those into a skilled leader, it's that easy. So we also wanted to ensure whatever we chose, uh, so that aligned with, um, all our requirements plus our local goals. So the state goal was to ensure that Act 20, um, involved, um, themic awareness, decoding ultimate knowledge letter sound and uh, oral vocabulary. Our district strategic goal, um, under our student staff engagement pillar was to implement a guaranteed and viable curriculum aligned to the standards with a scope of sequence. So right now we'll have K through five aligned and our local goal at ENS

088Elementary is to increase our ELA scores, showing more growth, being at or above leading. Um, and also with our fourth and fifth grade being, um, working for the next percentile and demonstrating growth. So our current A-E-S-S-L-O goals, student learning outcomes are focused on ELA. So it all, um, align under our new curriculum. Uh, the curriculums that we did look at, we looked at the updated super case 2025 EL education, which is utilized at Maple Grove. Our core knowledge language arts, which you'll hear a lot, is called CKLA, written Wisdom Bookworms and open court. And these, uh, several of these were on the list from the PI, um, and we, I think there's it later on, there might be a, nope, I took that slide out. But there's, um, showed all the, the curriculums that were,

089um, recommended and their strengths and drawbacks. So these are the ones that we chose out of many, many, many. Okay. And we went with open court reading. So that's that. And the key features for that, um, are system systematic on instruction, integrated reading and writing, explicit comprehension strategy instruction, vocab development and data driven assessment tools. So those were the key features of this program that we are very, very hopeful will, um, increase our teaching skills and increase our students' learning. So now, um, open court provides a consistent curriculum across multiple grade levels. Students learn in each grade and subject should connect and make sense and help students build on what they already know. So we're hoping as you go to the next slide, um, you'll see that the foundational skills continue to build and grow.

090And then the cost proposal, um, Andrea did the legwork on the cost proposal. So you'll see that it all comes down. Did you wanna say something else before I just summarize it very quickly? You're doing great. Go ahead. So the grand total, um, is 58,861. And that's a lot. But, um, our kids and our teachers are worth having a, a program that has been vetted that is, um, aligned with the science of reading and that we're not, um, using resources from here and here and here and piecing together, um, that we have something that, uh, it has a continuum and um, it'll be a really, really good positive thing for, for at elementary. So the plan to do this is, um, after you approve it tonight, um, grades K through five, we'll begin you go

091to the next slide. Um, we'll start in the fall. So, uh, over this summer we will have some ongoing, um, some additional ongoing going training support and create um, a way to communicate the changes to parents because this is a lot. Um, I think the act 20 was a lot coming up parents too. And now they're gonna be like, okay, now what, what do you do? So how do we learn and embrace and also keep, um, parents in movement communication. So those will be our goals. So any questions? 'cause I have this awesome team behind me that has all the answers. You guys are really intimidating. I have a question. Yeah. Um, is it like workbook style computer? Like what kind of, because I know super kids are really well, but like what method is

092this? Those are great questions and I can answer, but I did a lot of poor very well. I think it depends on grade level they're in too. Um, because we have, um, like the traditional, you know, you have practice pages, but not, I would say that as much as what we are familiar with right now. Um, so we're looking at more, this program has like a discussion board. So like each time you're changing your unit, you're gonna be changing this discussion board where the students are free to explore it, add to it, ask about it, um, throughout that whole story time. So it's more of um, build that background knowledge and more exposed to seeing covering or not having much. But there's online stuff too. Yeah, it's gonna be a combination and yeah, sometimes it

093does field worksheet, um, that came out really. But um, but there are also a lot of, of different interactive and what I'm trying to do is get kids to think about the thinking and um, talk about uh, how they're recognizing and what they're learning and how to voice that to each other. And it'll be good, is good and, and then all in one. So it'll be good. You know, one thing will be sad with the, uh, the students really know their super kids characters and they love their, their people. So we'll, we'll have a celebration, uh, sunset them, but be able to go into a lot of different text, um, as well as some different, different stories, different um, novels. That'll be fun as well. And we're also working with DPI and is too, um,

094district implementation team. Um, and we're under early leading. And so this will be a really nice lead into, uh, project work for that, um, that grant as well. So lots going on. Kudos to this team. Um, because they don't just show up for those scheduled meetings. Um, I think a couple of you are there at like six 30 talking about this. So, um, pretty cool. So it, it is good, it's good positive conversations. I really appreciated that. Um, we embraced it and, and took on the insecure, like what about, what about, and we really analyze that. So it was good, good process. I, it's asking you guys had a committee? Yes. That's great. So good job to the committee. I think I would agree the investment is definitely worth it, right? Like setting that foundational

095knowledge and ELA for, you know, our students as they just from the ground up. So I think it's a good investment and Thank you. And we did explore EL but it didn't, um, it didn't fit um, Athens Elementary as it fits necessarily medical role. So, um, I just wanted to put that on there too because that might be a question within the community. Why are, why don't we have the same curriculum? Um, so we can dive into that more later too. But I just want you to know that that was same into considerations and that is why we did that. Um, Any other questions for the committee? Okay, thank you. This will be an action item as Well. Okay. The next one, um, is Athens school board vacancy. And we have Kat Becker and Kara

096Dears. Um, so both candidates, um, for the school board are present with us tonight. And I will leave the interview by asking each of the prepared questions. So board members you have a, like a folder I saw here with the materials for the applicants and the questions. Um, so we're gonna go through each question for each applicant. Um, will we ask the question and then they each get a chance to answer it That be best? Okay. That sound good for you guys? Tim? All alright. So okay. Please come on our, join us so we can, um, speak with you. Alright. So that during this time board members are encouraged to take notes as well. Okay. So the first question. Hello. Welcome. Okay, um, the first question is, why do you wanna be appointed to the

097Athens School Board? Um, Do you wanna go first? Sure, I guess, um, so I want, I have a, a child, young child and I'm looking to get more active in our community and um, and be more involved and I wanna make sure and help out to make sure that when my son gets to the age of being at school, the things that need to be done for that school and the school is still around when he does get there. 'cause um, we're not going anywhere. This is gonna be our community forever. So I wanna help build that up and I felt like this could be a pro, um, perfect opportunity to help in that way and help out the community in other ways. So I'm probably gonna repeat everything I wrote in my like letter

098so I don't wanna distribute or not. Um, but I have thought about running for school board a bunch of times, um, and had life and farm and other things, um, including last year. And my mother has Alzheimer's and I decided, I think I talked to Jessica about this, I decided not to run until she was in a stable long-term care facility 'cause um, I felt like I was devoting a lot of time to that and she is now in that position. So I still would plan to run for school board in the next cycle if I am not appointed to this. Um, I feel like my kids have been in the district, um, throughout my time in Athens. So since they were little, I have a 10th, a 10th grader, soon to be 10th grader,

099soon to be senior and a soon to be seventh grader. And I feel like I, um, you probably have gotten some of my messages but I feel like I've tried to engage the school board with things that I wanna see changed. But I feel like I've been involved as a parent, um, in the district and I think that I bring a lot, um, of different experiences that could be helpful in specifically the bad things that might come up. So like federal funding cuts and referendum. Um, so great time to join the floor, right? Limited resources. And just so I mean I think everybody knows who each of you are. What would you just tell us your, your names first? Sorry, Kara dears. Kara and, and I'm Kat A k Katrina Becker. Thank You. Thank you.

100Okay. What are the contributions you think you can make to the leadership of the district? Okay, um, Um, I bring some, I actually work for the county so I know a lot of things going on with the county so I can bring that kind of, um, help and aspect to the board. Um, 'cause I do that for work. I also have had lots of leadership roles like, um, in my past and running different board and just helping get out and be involved in the community 'cause I am out, out there doing what I can. Um, I do know I'm not like those of you that don't know, I'm not local to this community. I actually come from Medford, but I've been in the community now for almost 10 years and I've done what I can

101to help support. I have volunteered for as many things as I can. Um, I actually used to work for the school district. Um, so I can do a lot that way. And I'm not afraid to get out there and do the hard work and be on those committees and have those tough conversations. Like I said, I do a lot of it with the county now with the job I currently have. Um, so those are just a few things I feel like I could bring to the board. Um, so I think I bring like some board skills. I've been on boards of nonprofit organizations. Um, so I have like basic understandings of aside from my own business, like budgeting understandings, um, in terms of finances and I've been part of like strategic plan processes and you

102know, organizational overhauls and hiring of executive directors and things like that. So I think those basic skills are helpful for any board and I have those. Um, I also feel like I do bring perspectives from, I am, I'm less from this community. I have lived here for 21 years, um, or from New York City. So like Medford, I feel like that just indebted it. But uh, I've lived in Wisconsin since 2002, so I feel like I'm almost a Wisconsin my children are. Um, but I think the other thing that I bring is just like perspectives in certain areas. So I used to teach in the UW college system, so I have a lot of experience with the two year college system and understanding, um, the context that our kids go into out kind of after,

103after school. Um, so that's like another perspective that I bring in. I know we have like a really strong business representation on our board. So I have business skills, but I think the most related experiences in that educational background. Um, describe your understanding of the school board's role and the administration's role in the district. Start Switch It off. So I'm hoping there's like an initiation process, an informational, I know there, I think school boards all have orientation processes, right? Um, I feel, and this is my peer opinion, I think that I have a good understanding of the school board's, um, role, which is guiding the finances short term and long term as well as major decisions like curriculum approving those. Um, but I think, you know, ideologically just being responsive to the community's needs is

104what the school board member like does. Looking at what our community needs, not just like our own opinions on what our kids or specific people, um, need. And I think in terms of the administrator, I think, you know, the school board is technically the administrator's boss. Um, but as with everything, 'cause we have, you know, every team member here, it's a team effort, right? And so the school board is obviously working with the administrator, offering their expertise, um, but also drawing on the expertise of the administrator and also like working with, um, principals and other administration, um, to understand the needs of teachers and kids probably That. And I think another big thing I think to understand is like the board, like makes, has to have a lot of those tough conversation with staff and

105the community when it comes to things. And they not only have to hear out the community, but they have to make sure that they hear, but also address their concerns and needs, even if it's not in the way that the community wants. Um, like for example, like the last referendum, there was quite a few meetings I attended where, um, you had to address the staff or the, not the staff, the community, even though you were addressing it, they didn't really agree with it, but they were trying to do that. And making sure like not only addressing the community, but you're looking at the, the student and you're all working together as a cohesive unit to make sure that we're everything that's needed to be met and those people are being heard and understood and everything

106else she said. Okay. Thank you. Um, and what is your view of the district's recent performance in terms of financial stewardship? I, well, I will tell you my, I mean I feel like the Athens, and I will say this to Andrea's credit, um, the Athens School district is in a hard financial position. Um, I also think, you know, as the seaside Penn people said, this is not an uncommon, it's structural, it's a structural state based funding issue. And so Athens finds themselves in a structural state based funding issue. Um, I do wish, I kind of wish that I had joined the school board, like when my kids were little. Not that I could have like saved things, but I think one of the hard things is that Athens wasn't as proactive about dealing with some

107of the long-term physical structural issues. Um, and some of those things really would've served us as investments being so debt diverse in some of those like historical things. I think some of, I wish we had made some different decisions as a district. So I think we're in a hard position that said, I mean I strongly believe I believed in it before, but in, you know, in a referendum, um, for improvements, I think we need them as a district. But I hope that that process of building the necessary financial resources that we need can be also like a community organizing process. I think that's what everyone wants, not just like an anger fest. Um, and it, you know, something that I will probably, I'm saying this in front of the press, but I think something that

108a lot of folks in Athens, even with the last referendum didn't understand. And I think as a district we need to be, or as school board need to be better at messaging is just how low our property taxes are. Um, and I know that that is, property taxes are a horrible way to fund education, but that is the position that we find ourselves in. And I think just being really clear about this, this is a bad way to get funding, but this is what, this is the tool we have. But also if, if we went to, if Medford took us over, if Abbotsford took us over, it would be more money and people really understanding why their taxes went up. I think that that's a, I think it's a really hard, it was so hard

109to communicate and I always say, you know, our property taxes in Marshfield would be five times as much. Um, you know, so I mean that's not an understatement either. That's like the actual amount. So I think, you know, that's, that's where, that's my view on the complicated finances. I would agree. I also think you, the board did a very good job of like, like being in that hard position and trying to do their best to use their resources to figure about how they can make this money go as far as it can to make sure we don't have as many cuts and, uh, things like that. Um, I would also agree that communication was a, was a big thing. It is a thing that needs to be looked at, um, when it comes to the

110community. 'cause even as, um, when I worked here, when this was going on, I was just as confused like, why, what's going on? Um, so I think the communication issues would be a little bit better, but there were good conversations. Like there was a couple of school board members I talked to out in the public when this was going on and they took the time and were willing to take the time, just ask those questions. So I think you guys did a good job communicating. I just think it needs to be, they just need to address like the specifics a little bit better to help the community truly understand, um, and um, and understand them, help understand their you guys' decision of, okay, this is what we have, these are the cuts we need to

111make, but this is how it's gonna benefit us in a way to make so that they're just not seeing, oh, we cut this amount of teachers or we cut this program. Like help just explain that to the community a little bit better. And other, I mean, but you guys did what you could for the situation that we're in, like that the school is in. Thank you. Um, suppose you kind of touched on this before, but if you just wanted to just, if there's anything to add with, what specific prior involvement have you had with the district schools First on this one? Uh, so I met my husband from here. I've been here for the last, oh, make myself old, I think almost 10 years now. I worked for the district, um, two, three years ago

112as the health aide. Um, I would've loved to have kept the job. Um, it was through Marathon County though, but it was not full-time. And at the time we needed full-time. Um, I now currently still living in the district. I plan for my little guy and future children to attend here. I currently work for Marathon County Social Services, um, child Protective Services as a social worker. So I'm still involved in this community and part of the district as well, per my job. Um, so, and I would just love to become more involved, especially as, you know, time we go on and my kids get older and like I said, I wanna make sure that when my little guy gets old enough or any future kids that I have, that there is the school still around

113for him to go to. Um, because this little school, it's, it builds a community and it gives your kids that understanding of this is a little community and they're gonna fight for you especially. 'cause I came from a big high school, um, where I don't know half the kids' names here. I mean, everybody knows everybody, which could be a good and a bad thing, but it builds that community and that character for the kids. So yeah, I think we both touched on it, but I've been, you know, primarily obviously interacting with the school district as a parent and all the principals are here, so they all have gotten, uh, I feel like that's actually my main, my main communication has been around teachers. Like lots of my kids' teachers in here has been directly with

114teachers and, um, the principals and like occasionally with the administrator when I feel like I, there's a structural issue or there's a giant mess that's like generally. Um, and so that's been my involvement with Athens. I mean, I think with past administrators, we were involved with writing a grant a long time ago. I worked with Joy in writing a grant, um, um, for the elementary school at one point. Um, and then, you know, like the basic things like basketball, little girls basketball, coaching and soccer and things like that. But I mean, that's my main, my main participation has been as a parent, um, in the district. Okay. All right. So how would you handle receiving a call or a text message from an irate parent or employee with a complaint? Like get those on a

115daily? So, uh, you hear 'em out, you, you, you, you think, you hear 'em out. You think, um, for, you know, whatever their complaint is, whatever their are, um, I read about and you just explain to them that like you heard them, you'll take it to the board or you'll, you know, have further discussions with those that need to have the discussion with and then you follow back up with 'em and I mean, in this case, you off, um, offer them to attend the meeting, um, or have a sit down meeting with whoever needs to sit down. And, um, I think the most important thing is you don't, you don't, unless there's like direct questions that you can answer, you just hear them out. You thank them for their time and their concern, and then

116you take it to the people that it needs to go to and make sure, the big thing is make sure you follow up, like following up with those people, whether it's they attend a meeting and you address it, or you have a one-on-one meet or like a meeting with the board and the, um, and make sure that they felt like you were heard, that they were heard and that you didn't just blow them, blow them off kind of a situation. Yeah. So I'm assuming there's rules that dictate like, uh, norms of communication as a board, so we can't probably just meet like four of us with somebody and talk. So, so I feel like, you know, you know, given the official lines of communication, I assume that those bounds will be really clearly communicated to

117me and I'll know. Um, but I think, you know, similarly, I think it's about listening to people, seeing their viewpoint, understanding their truth, because I think often in communication, even my own communication issues, what you see, um, is part of it. Um, and I also think the district, I mean, I've also told Andre this, I think the district could work a lot on communication. I think communication is one of our biggest weaknesses because I think the positive things that are happening often don't get told to people or that even if you like say something as a parent or as a community member, even knowing that things are happening in the background, often that information doesn't get passed down. And so I think, you know, as a school board, it is our job also to help

118with community-wide, um, communication. So, you know, I, you know, I rate parent, I rate employees. I mean, theoretic, I'm assuming that teachers are not supposed to contact individual board members individually, but maybe they do. Um, I no idea, um, how that works, but I hope to learn more about that. Um, but I do think, you know, I really strongly believe in teachers and so I hope as a board member I can also, you know, be a listening ear in terms of creating proactive change. Not just like, you know, not just anger, but like listening to what people need. Okay. All right. As a school board member, how would you be an advocate for the district schools and students? Just getting involved in getting out there and like, um, participating, like if there's, uh, community meetings

119with the public or, um, you know, activities that the school board should be like involved in. Like any there, the community is really trying to build up its activities that they do out in the community. Like with the weekly, I don't just, for example, like the farmer's markets and all that kind of stuff in the movies, like just getting out and being present. Like, I think it's very, very opening to the community when they see like the school board out there supporting these activities. And even if that's just supporting by being there, not even having to anything to do with it is huge. So I think the community really needs to see the school board out and showing that they're supporting the community and the kids no matter what's going on. Um, and the d

120difficult decisions that are being made. Will you say the whole question again? Sure. Um, as a school board member, how would, I, was listening to her answer. Yeah, Exactly. How would you be an advocate for the district schools and students? Yeah, so I guess part of the reason I like signed up for this potential thing is because I feel like it's a moment where we're gonna need a lot of advocacy over the next few years around structural referendum, but also ongoing operational referendums. And I also think we're at a par point where there's like low some low teacher and student morale around structural changes that happened because of first referendum didn't pass, um, which caused obviously all of the things that I think were really hard for the community. Um, and so I feel like

121part of my role would be, I think potentially to back up all the good work the school district has done, but also offer like the idea and proactive, like we're making positive changes, um, and being really clear around that communication. And so I think, um, framing that as like new school board members are helping do that is a, is a really important thing that a new school board member can offer, which is like offering the perspective of being a new advocate rather than like the old blood, even if you are carrying on the good work that the board is doing. So, um, but I feel like that's why I'm signing up is like for the, the, the campaign a little bit. Um, and then also just I think we had a discussion um, about recreating

122a community board advisory board that can do some of the, um, cheerleading, um, and get feedback from the community and interact with the board. And that's something I'm really interested in pushing forward is just having a wider set of people in the community that's talking, not just the board and administrator and and principals. Okay. All right. What do you think the school board should do to ensure that the district is able to attract and retain high quality teaching and administrative staff? If you want, I mean, I also told everybody this, but I historically, but I do think we need to hire more teachers to show teachers good faith that we're going to back them up. Um, I think that our teaching staff is really strapped right now. Like, um, and you know, we are asking

123people to do a lot with a little and more and more with less. Um, and I think that the ease, the easiest, I know it's money, but the easiest thing we can do is listen to the areas where teachers need the most support and hire in those positions as like a good faith act and then, um, build on that. And, you know, I, I think that it is important to have continuity of administrators and teachers. I think that's the strongest, historically athens's strongest point was long-term teachers. And so, um, building that back up by, I think, I mean it's morale based, but it's also about just like hours. And I know it's complicated because of certifications. I mean it's not an easy thing in a small district. Um, but I feel like that is the,

124the baseline I would agree with that. I would also agree, or I would also say like with the teachers that have stuck around and um, teachers that are coming in making sure that they're having a competitive wage to other school districts. I know I've heard that around that like the competitive wage and making sure that they're feeling supported, um, if they do decide to stay and like, you know, trying to get like build up, she said, she said build up the morale and make sure that the teachers that are here do feel supported and do, and doing our best to figure out a way to make them feel supported, even if we can't hire new teachers. But figuring out a way to reconfigure things to make sure that all the staff feels supported along with

125the students, make sure the students' needs are met. Um, but I would say one of the big things is probably that competitive, um, salary piece that comes with like, and I know we're in a tough situation, but making sure it's somewhat close or what we can do to make it fair to other schools. Okay. There's two questionables left by the way. I know this is, um, so second to last question. What do you foresee as the biggest challenges the school district will face in the next five years? Referendum that's coming again, um, in getting the community to truly understand what it means and why it's needed. Um, because I feel with the last one, a lot of your, a lot of the community, it was older and was like, well, all they heard was, oh,

126your taxes are gonna go up. Um, and they didn't understand why, nor did they attend those meetings too. And I think, um, that's gonna be one of our biggest things. And if like that doesn't pass or like some doesn't have it, it's gonna be the next hardest thing is gonna be how to make sure that we can keep the district open and make sure that we're not having to set, send these kids to these bigger schools when the little schools are what people are wanting and needing for their children. I would agree like the, I mean I think the financial constraints, I mean, assuming federal funding gets worse, which I think is something which likely will happen or less stable maybe I should say. 'cause it's happening with everything is like instability in federal funding,

127which has generally very stable, um, for schools together with I think the, the tax based revenue that's gonna be like the biggest challenge. Um, but I still think that there is, I mean the challenges around getting community buy-in around education is like the biggest work. And also getting people to feel like the community is the, the school is the heart of the community, even if they are 80 or 75 and property taxes, why do those taxes matter? I think that that is, that is like, that mean it's it kind of for our district. Okay. Last question. Um, what do you see as the current strengths of the school district? I'll start, I'll tell you the stories that I always, I tell stories 'cause people always ask about a, you know, they ask about a small

128school or, and I always say, you know, we don't really have AP classes and I think it is a hard place for kids that are in the top 25% of their class to get their needs met in the same way they would in a large district academically. I think that that is true. Um, and I think that that's a place that we probably have what we have as I've learned lots of resources that we don't, haven't utilized as well in the past. And I think that there's movement to use utilize like the college classes and those integrations way better than we have and make those transparent. So I should say that there's room for that, but I think what Athens offers is that it's like a place that kids get supported. So at type now

129it's getting to cry, but like at times my kids have struggled like with mental health issues or you know, like grandparents getting old and sick and like the type of support that they've had where I'm getting like calls from five teachers in one day where the guy, you know, they accommodate where my kids sits 'cause they're not feeling good where they will make room for them to, you know, see a therapist for a month and miss classes. Like, those are things that I feel like you cannot get in a larger district. And I think that, you know, it's a, it's a weird pitch to make, but I feel like my kids have always been extremely well emotionally supported. And then also the other part of that is I always say like, Riley has Zachary in

130his class who has autism and he's always in group projects with him. Like all like since fifth grade, right? Like Riley like sat with him in certain grade levels and like, and it is always been part of his educational experience, um, to like work with somebody that's differently abled and accept them for who they are. And like, I feel like it was at his fifth grade birthday party that Zachary's like noise canceling earphones stopped working or like earbuds and so all the kids ran to like get him another set and like, you know, Riley understands like people that are very different than him again in a different district. I feel like those relationships wouldn't be there. And so I think that there are these ways that our kids have relationships, really deep relationships and understanding

131of people and their individual needs in a way that they would never get. Um, and like they might be in an AP class, but then they, they aren't developing those emotional and personal skills that you take into life. And so, you know, we've always felt like our kids can learn a lot in college. It's not really gonna, some of these things aren't gonna matter as much, but in terms of life, I think it's, I dunno, there's my Athens pitch. This is why my kids are in this district. I would agree. I think the school also makes it feel like, I wanna say like a family and a community. Um, like I can tell you from like when I worked here, like if there was something going on, there was like five, six people checking in

132on you. Um, I know firsthand we're giving the kids that opportunity to that like, hey, you're having a bad day. Like let's talk about it. Let's figure out why. Um, I think they also, you guys also, like you hear the kids and you hear the community and I like that you guys try to make a community, like you try to involve the community as much as you can so that it doesn't just feel like you guys are making all of the decisions. Um, the communities involved, the teachers are involved and everybody gets a say and even the students, you've had students been involved, it makes it huge and it does make somebody who is an outsider who did come from a big school be like, yeah, that's where I want my kid to go. I

133don't want my kid just to be a number. And you guys, and this school also gives those kids opportunities even with the cuts that were made to do in Florida and like, um, FBLA and FFA you guys, they get so many more opportunities than even some of your bigger schools with some of these things because there is only certain things that's allowed, which is totally okay, but yet you also have the NTC program that that kids are flourishing and that we heard about. So I think there's a lot of, you guys offer a lot of opportunity, but yet make the kids still feel like they're part of a family and a community and they're not alone in this district. I feel like we have a sales pitch. I Put it together, we made a great

134team put it all together. Okay, so we're gonna do this. So thank you both for your interest. That was the end of the questions. Um, the board will take action tonight during the, we'll do it in the action items section and you'll vote to me. So thank you. You guys can't turn your seats. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. That was more intense than I thought I was gonna Be. Okay. All right. The next item for discussion is the neola policy 54 10. Do you wanna go Andrew, do you just wanna do the neola policies, like kind of beg to back? Sure. Okay. Absolutely. Um, so starting with policy, uh, 54 10, the title of this policy is Promotion, placement and Retention. Um, during our policy work during this past year, we recognize that this was

135not an active policy in our new suite. It is one that we, uh, do need to have the board consider for approval this evening. Um, so again, I met with the campus administrators and others that would be directly, um, connected with promotion, placement and retention. Um, there are some different choices that we made based on the practices that we follow, um, in the school district. Athens, um, in particular, um, this policy also addresses, um, the promotion from students that are moving from fourth grade to fifth grade and eighth grade to ninth grade. And then overall it's promotion of students. Any questions around this? Rose? Is this considered a first reading? Uh, yes, it's a draft out. Okay. Okay. I may have missed this, but why is there only specific wording on grade four and grade

136eight and why is that different from the other grades? That's a great question. Um, because state statute dictates that school districts need to have a promotion policy specific to those transitional groups. Okay. Now the second policy we'll discuss tonight if you want, I might just transition into that. Sure. Um, is based on as the board is aware in our community, um, we have ACT 20 and one of the requirements of Act 20 is a policy around third grade promotion and or retention of at-risk students. So again, this is now based upon new policy, I'm sorry, new statute for ACT Act 20. So that's why we need to discuss the promotion placement retention of the requirement between fourth and fifth and eighth and ninth. And then the third grade is the new one, both new and

137Athens, but they compliment one another. So again, uh, the principles were present and we went through um, this draft policy 54 11, this one also again aligned with what's required in Act 20. Um, you'll see in the first introduction paragraph there was a choice, um, regarding the policy applies to students being considered for promotion from third to fourth grade effective. And we could choose the date. The recommended date was September 1st, 2027. Um, we had a really good conversation, uh, with our new representative who has perspective from across the state who went in multiple districts. And then we talked about what was important to Ms. Athens. We felt as a team that the September 1st, 2027 was an appropriate date to include in this policy. So you'll see that would be choice on page one.

138And then on page two of this policy, um, there are multiple options. Um, in the section that reads in reaching the decision to promote or retain the student, the district will carefully consider all relevant factors including but now limited to, again, as a team, we walked through each of these choices as they were presented. We felt each had a certain importance. So we recommend, uh, to the board that each of them be included in this policy And in the policy. Those are the two areas where we can make choices that we're recommend to the board to consider. Okay, we have questions on those two policies so far. Okay. Um, I'm gonna go through the third area for OLA policies and I'm gonna read a little bit of information just to set the stage for these

139are considered of and anger policies of gives uniform grant guidance. What that means is this guidance established uniform administrative requirements, cost principles and audit requirements for all federal awards to non-federal entities regardless of the awarding agency. Edgar is the educational department, general administrative regulations. These are the specific regulations that govern grant programs within the US Department of Education. So those present during these reviews and what we bring forward tonight be stinky and, uh, Tammy from business office, uh, we met with the Illinois representative and the choices that we made in the of and other policies do align very clearly with the practices that we follow within our business office in the school district of Athens. And we pause for a moment. Uh, Beth did you have any comments around the other or ed policies in

140our packet? Okay. Any questions? Board? So these will be action items And the next Andrea has the 2020 5 26 employee handbook. Thank you. Um, I shared with the board last year in July of 2024 when we brought forth, um, based on the work of the employee handbook advisory committee at that time, a comprehensive update, um, to the existing handbook. I indicated that the goal would be each year to gather feedback from all of our employees, bring that feedback to the advisory if they were willing to come back together and if they were, um, and then we would go through that feedback and those comments. And our goal would be to continue to continue to enhance and improve the handbook. This is a guiding document that again provides not only administration, but our employees with

141how we handle certain situations. So in particular on draw attention, uh, for the board of education, two areas where we've made some significant improvements we feel based on staff. Um, input one is under, um, the title in the previous handbook was Emergency Leave. We have now titled it Bereavement Emergency Leave. So we received significant amount of feedback that, um, the language in the current handbook might have been somewhat restrictive in how an employee could use emergency leave. And we didn't have the in there, so we had very good conversation, um, as an advisory. And we've made an update. Um, you'll see in a couple of the different bullet points underneath, uh, this area. First and foremost, we've retitled it to be bereavement and emergency leave. We have maintained the same number of days and we've

142offered, uh, four in the past and we were retaining four. I will say that I reached out to eight different districts, um, to ask for feedback to see an employee handbooks how things around, uh, bereavement and emergency were listed. Um, the majority of districts that she responses from offer three days. Um, so we did celebrate at some point in the past, our board of education felt it was important to offer our employees for the advisory felt that was important to maintain. So we did not change the number. Um, but we do have some additional language. Um, the second bullet point, not as restrictive as a language in the current employee handbook. Um, we recognize that if a employee is going through, um, a period of time where someone has passed away, um, that we want

143to give them that time to be with a family or a friend. Um, so we've left it broad instead of making it more specific. Um, and then we talk about emergency leave. There are situations where an employee might find themselves, um, in a situation where they need a few days for very unique, um, maybe non-traditional experience that we would define as emergency. We wanna be able to try to support our employee in that type of situation. So we've updated that as well. So this language, um, representing the conversation from our advisory, um, we feel directly responds in a positive way to the comments we received from our employees. And we have a few people in the audience. Um, I know Beth and Becky and Robin are all representatives on that advisory. Would you want to

144add anything else in this area? No, I think it was a detailed discussion, um, from the whole committee. The other area where we received, uh, feedback and we wanted to respond as an advisory was under implement weather leave. Uh, living in northern Wisconsin, it's rare, um, that we have a year where we don't experience some type of inclement weather leave. And so the language, um, that we've added here is more representative of situations we might have found ourselves in during the past year. So our goal, um, was to be supportive. Our employees, if they find themselves in this situation where we have to cancel school due to inclement weather, um, we want to be good stewards though of our money, um, and representing, um, the school district. So if someone is working, um, or not

145working, when and how do we pay them? So this, um, really received a lot of conversation on the advisory. We felt confident at the end that we had met the interest of the feedback from our employees. So we've added three additional bullet points here. Um, the language prior to this year had the first bullet point, which was full-time, part-time, 12 month employees could elect to use a paid vacation day, um, if they were not going to come to work due to implement weather or if there was an emergency situation where once this year we did have to cancel school at Able Grove because we had no electricity. Um, so we did experience something that we would consider an emergency situation. Um, and so additional language now we feel, um, is more inclusive of all of

146our staff is full or part-time 12 month employees may elect to use up to, but not to exceed two emergency days for compensation. If they did not report to work on any that weather or other emergency situation day, we did discuss as an advisory. There are times where, uh, for example, in Jamie Han's department, um, where he might need support from the custodians, if it's a bad weather day, we need to make sure that it's safe entrance them out for staff. He has specific guidelines, um, with some flexibility of when the snow ends or when it's safe for an employee to come. But there is some option if they not all of the members of the team chose to work on an other day. So we would rely on our facilities operations supervisor to make

147some of those decisions to make sure things are still safe. The additional language, then again through feedback from our employees, what comes next is full or part-time school year, classified employees may allowed to use a paid personal day to compensate for not coming to work on an income of weather or emergency situation day. And on the next page 17, um, in addition, that same classification of employees could also all allow to use but not exceed up to two emergency days to be compensated if they did not work on an income of mother or emergency situation day. So what we've done as an advisory is take the feedback from the employees that provided it, uh, to us not only in the survey, but perhaps in situations. We did experience this year and we tried to make

148it not only equitable, um, and fair, but to give options, um, so that if someone could use, if they had a vacation, a personal day, or up to those two I days. So we felt that was kind of a compromise, um, to be able to meet those interests. I, Again, anyone from the committee Wanted I give very good discussion. We felt that the comments and the feedback we got through this survey, we were able to accommo accommodate and make those changes in those two areas. Any questions or discussion? Okay. And then Andrea Sheridan will present the human resources report. Okay, thank you. Um, this month, um, I did uh, receive a resignation letter from Mr. Mike Bear. He is our school district of Athens, um, a high school school counselor. Um, he's looking for another

149opportunity. So he has, um, tendered his resignation through that process of that resignation. Um, the team or department of school counselors and pupil services staff members, which includes, um, Mike Bear, Alexis Medford, and Carissa Denton. Um, they came together and talked about the needs and the potential for the other two department members, um, Alexis Medford and Carissa Denton to assume more responsibilities and request. Um, what I'm considering and sharing with the board is a contract amendment. Um, when the board approved, um, Alexis Ledford and Chris Denton as employees at last month's, uh, teacher contract conversation, um, both were slate to be a part-time or 0.5 ft for the upcoming year. Um, Alexis Metford does have an interest in becoming a full-time employee. Um, she has strengths and skills at the secondary level and she is,

150um, runs with her certification as a school social worker. Um, and she has an interest in also doing some of the DAC work. So we'll keep that all together and she'll be a full-time pupil services or social, uh, school social worker at the secondary schools. And Chris Denson has an interest in almost full-time, but not exactly. Um, she is a young child at home, so, um, we had some great conversations and she has an interest in being a 0.5 school counselor. She's a certified school counselor, which we do need at the elementary level to teach a comprehensive guidance curriculum. Um, she's been doing that at a s and Able Grove and she would continue, she would have some additional time though to meet, um, with students either individually or small groups, which, um, the principals

151have been advocates for that. We need a little bit more time at the elementary just due to some student needs. So she's also very passionate at the elementary level. So she, uh, would prefer to stay at the elementary and increase slightly up to 0.8. And Alexis has a strength and an interest in the secondary. So even though, um, we, uh, wish Mr. Bear well, um, we feel that by doing some reworking of that department, we will still meet our needs and be able to meet our employees where they have an interest, which is great. So we could not only, um, maintain them, um, but they are appreciative of those options. So yesterday, bring that to board tonight. Any questions that will also be an action item. Okay, so we are gonna move to action items

152and the first one is, um, revenue and expense reports. So on the revenue report, um, you will see the revenue from local sources. That is about 5% of total property taxes. Um, we are expecting approximately 28%, um, in August. So that's when we'll receive a final payment from property taxes. Um, also under state sources, um, common school funds was $72,551, which is an increase of about, um, $8,500 from last year. So that comes off of our student census count. Um, and as far as expenses go, everything is pretty normal. Um, they fund 50 expenses are trending a bit high, but the fund 50 revenue is also trending a bit higher. So we'll continue to keep watching that through the month of May when we, um, start finalizing our food service invoices. Questions on the revenue

153and expenses? Okay, we're looking for a motion to approve the revenue and expense reports presented. I'll make a motion. Second? Second, yes. Okay. Becky, roll call case. Steve? Yes. Jessica? Yes. Tom? Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. And Pam? Yes. Okay. Um, Beth, we'll present a checks and cash receipts as well. Are there any questions on either of those reports? Motion. Okay. Motion adjust. I'll second Steve. And can you roll call, roll please? Yeah. Steve? Yes. Jessica? Yes. Tom? Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. Thank You. Yes. Okay. Then we have the Athens Elementary School English and Language Arts Curriculum Adoption. Is there a motion to approve the English and language arts curriculum adoption for Athens Elementary School as presented? I Motion. Okay, I'll second. Okay. Okay. Becky, roll call. Vote please. Steve? Yes. Jessica? Yes. Tom?

154Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. Yep. Yes. Thank you. All right. So now we have the school board vacancy appointment. So the board will cast it out of their choice on the piece of paper that is in your folder. And then you will hand it over for Becky to tally. This Is by Cardstock Fancy an accident. Do I have, oh, sorry. Excuse me. Yeah. Will you tell us who had how many votes? Sure. Um, so this vote was done by paper ballot, um, votes were counted by myself. Um, Katrina Becker received six five votes and dear received one vote. Um, so the person appointed is Katrina Becker. Thank you. Um, the clerk will administer the oath of office to Katrina Becker to serve the board term ending April, 2026. Alright. Will you come up here? Where

155do I go? Right in front script. I read you have to repeat after. Oh, repeat. Okay. Do. Okay. So I don't know where I'm standing. Turn Around and face the camera. Is there A camera? Oh no, I'm standing in front of the camera. Am I good? No. Hi, Katrina Becker. Hi, Katrina Becker Having been elected or appointed to the office of Athens School Board Athens School Board, But have not yet entered upon the duties thereof, Swear or affirm that I will support, Swear or affirm that I support, Uh, the Constitution of the United States, The Constitution of the United States and The constitution of the state of Wisconsin And the constitution of the state of Wisconsin. And Will faithfully discharge the duties And will faithfully discharge the duties Upset office to the best of my

156ability, Upset office by the best of my abilities. So help me God. So help me God. Thank you. You probably remember that constitution. I know, right? Okay. I got a red, red hook. I don't wanna use Red and it's immediate. Okay. All right. Now we have, um, at 1 43 school safety drills spring 2025 to approve. And Becky, I sent you the Okay. Is there a motion to accept all of, like, are they three separate ones or are they all together? They're just all together. Okay. A motion to accept the school safety drugs. I'll make motion. Okay. Tucker Second. Okay. And Becky, can you do a little call, vote? Sure. Steve? Yes. Jessica? Yes. Ka? Yes. Tom? Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. And Cam? Yes. Okay. Next. Is there a motion to approve the neo

157a policy 54 10 on promotion, placement and retention As a first reading, correct? That's what I thought we have. 'cause it's a draft status. It's technically a first reading. So do we have to approve or acknowledge that it's been Read? We can, we actually have, um, on my law that indicates that it could be first reading draft and you could approve it if you prefer. It could be first reading. We could bring it back next month too. If there's suggested changes, I would suggest changing the word draft out of it. Okay. 'cause I don't like approving anything that's in draft form. Sure. If everybody's okay with that, I just mm-hmm. So is the idea to edit it, approve it without the word draft on? Or do you bring it back next Month? I, I would

158make a motion that we can approve with the word draft removed from the document. Okay. Yes. Okay. I have nothing, no issue with the verbiage itself. The draft is what throws me off. Okay. So you make, you're making the Motion. I'll make that motion, yes. Okay. Approve with the word draft off of it by Tom in the, in 54 10 and in the Ugg Edgar policy also had draft on it. Okay. Shush. Okay. So that motion has been made. I'll second. Perfect. And then cam second. And this is for policy 54 10. Um, Becky, can you recall both? Sure. Steve? Yes. Jessica? Yes. Camp? Yes. Tom? Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. Kim? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. And is there a motion to approve Neil policy 54 11 on third grade promo promotion and retention

159with the word draft removed? I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second. Okay. Roll call. Vote please. Steve? Yes. Jessica? Yes. Kat? Yes. Tom? Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. Kim? Yes. Thank you. All Right. Is there a motion to approve the Edgar policies as presented With the word draft removed? I Will make that motion. Okay. I'll second Cam and Becky will call the police. Steve? Yes. Jessica? Yes. Ka? Yes. Tom? Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. Cam? Yes. Okay. And 2020 5 26. Employee handbook. Is there a motion to approve as presented? Second. Motion. I'll second. And uh, roll. Will call vote. Steve. Yes. Jessica? Yes. Tom? Yes. Sorry. Cap? Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. Kim? Yes. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And then the last one on action items is a motion to approve the

160human resources report as presented. I'll make a motion. Steve, I'll second. Okay. And a roll call. Vote. Use Steve. Yes. Jessica? Yes. Ka? Yes. Tom? Yes. Angie? Yes. Tucker? Yes. Kim? Yes. Thank You. Alright, we, um, is there a motion to adjourn to executive closed session on your Wisconsin statute 19.851 CF for the purpose of considering employment compensation performance evaluations, personal information of specific individuals which if discussed in public, would have a substantial adverse effect on their reputation. Um, the board is going to discuss the following, vacancies, resignations, layoffs and retirements related to professional staff positions, support staff and curricular positions. A motion to adjourn the closed session. I like A motion. Okay. Steve, Second. Second. And all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Okay. We'll be in closed session. Okay. Happens now

161we stay quiet. Generally we take a small bathroom break and then Yes, go ahead. My not coming in right? Yes. Yeah. Take a bathroom break and then when everybody's here and we can close the door and have our whole session discussion.